1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air cleaner for a vehicle, and more particularly, to an air cleaner which may be made of plastic for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, the intake system of vehicle engines is equipped with an air cleaner that sucks air from the atmosphere, filters foreign substances from the air, and then supplies the filtered air to the engine.
The air cleaner includes a body accommodating a filter element etc., a cover that covert the upper portion of the body, and a plurality of clamping units that clamps the cover to the body, using elasticity of springs.
In common gasoline vehicles, the air cleaner is made of plastic and mounted apart from the injector, such that explosion pressure is not directly transmitted to the air cleaner; therefore, the body and the cover are fixed by the clamping units.
On the other hand, in vehicles using LPG fuel, since a mixer that mixes the LGP fuel with the air is mounted between the intake hose and a throttle body, combustion in the engine reaches even around the mixer, such that the explosion pressure (hereafter, referred to as “backfire pressure) is transmitted to the inside of the air cleaner.
Therefore, when the LPG vehicle is equipped with the air cleaner made of plastic and having the structure with the body and the cover fixed by clamping units, the backfire pressure is exerted as large internal pressure between the body and the cover; therefore, the parts of the air cleaner (body, cover, filter element, and clamping units, etc.) are damaged by the backfire pressure.
Accordingly, the air cleaners made of plastic are replaced by air cleaners made of steel in the LPG vehicles in the related art, but in this case, the weight and manufacturing cost of the air cleaners are increased.
The information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.